JERUSALEM.- In 1937 the Nazi regime held a major 'Decadent Art' exhibition in Munich, displaying avant-garde art, which they considered a danger to society. Not by accident did they choose a photo of Otto Freundlich's sculpture The New Man for the cover of the exhibition catalog. Freundlich, who was born to a Jewish family, aspired to what he called "cosmic communism", and developed an abstract method of conveying egalitarian political views. This was expressed in his work through separate forms that combined into a single unit, itself but a part of the larger whole. In this way his works are considered a political manifesto, expressed in color and form.

The exhibition The Shadow of Color brings together - for the first time - the works of four path breaking abstract artists: Otto Freundlich, Len Lye, Lygia Clark and Blinky Palermo. Though working at different times and in different places, they developed a similar visual language. At the heart of their work they treated color as their prime substance; each trying to break through the two-dimensionality of the painting surface into a third dimension. All four of them were individualists, both in their life styles, and in the unique, and independent art they created.

The exhibition allows the visitor to examine the special character of each artist, and observe the way in which their art fuses, revealing a less known side of abstract art of the twentieth century.

Freundlich, the oldest of the four, lived in Paris and was close to leading artists among them Picasso, Kandinsky, and Ernst. Although he was highly regarded, and well integrated in the art scene, he had little commercial success. When the Nazis came to power, they confiscated some of his work. He himself was later murdered at the Majdanek death camp. The exhibition features selected paintings created in his pioneering style - colorful geometric shapes organized by shade - and the sculpture Ascension, which is considered the first abstract, monumental sculpture in Western art.

Len Lye was born in 1901 in New Zealand. His life was marked by wanderings: from New Zealand to Sydney, Samoa, London, New York and finally - Puerto Rico. Lye began making films in the 30s when cinema was in its infancy. In the short films he created - two of which are shown in the exhibition - he transferred abstract painting to film; drawing, engraving, and smearing paint directly onto the celluloid itself, creating visual images that moved to the sound of the unique music.

Lygia Clark, a native of Brazil, expressed her ideas with Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica and other Rio de Janeiro artists, in the Neo-Concrete Manifesto they wrote together. They declared their break from concrete art, and the demarcation between two-dimensional, and three-dimensional form. The exhibition shows her Bichos - sculptures created by Clark in the 60s, made from geometric metal planes, held together with hinges. She did not set the sculptural form, inviting visitors to manipulate them into various spatial arrangements, including them in the creative process.

Blinky Palermo was and remains a mythical figure in the art world. He was born in Germany in 1943, as Peter Schwartz, and at 18 he adopted the name of an American mobster and boxing promoter. Drawing on unusual surfaces he researched conditions of painting at the edge of the sculpture. Although he used industrial, everyday materials such as metal and cloth, his works provoke an emotional aesthetic experience. Palermo died in 1977, aged of 33, at The Maldives. The circumstances of his death, however remain unclear.